49. PACK’D

Founders: Luke Johnstone and Alex Stewart
Founded: April 2014 (launched September 2015)
Website: www.packd.co.uk

In his late teens Luke Johnston suffered a serious sports injury to his knee. Little did he know at the time, but this accident would lead to the creation of now two-time Startups 100-featured business PACK’D…

In order to speed up his recovery, Johnston began focusing more on his nutrition but it wasn’t until after finishing university that he began to realise the lack of high quality, nutritious juices and smoothies.

A product that he wanted, and wanted to enable others to benefit from, Johnston teamed up with friend Alex Stewart and set out to solve the problem.

Launched in 2015, PACK’D specialises in frozen smoothie kits that are developed with sports nutritionists and can be prepared in under one minute.

Each kit contains six precisely portioned flash-frozen fruit and vegetables and a bespoke blend of four superfoods. October 2017 also saw the launch of a protein smoothie kit range.

Today, Startups Awards-nominated PACK’D has secured 1,500 listings nationally including Sainsbury’s Tesco, Ocado, Whole Foods, Iceland, Lidl, and Amazon Fresh, as well as food service at the Compass Group and KPMG.

While its list of stockist are formidable, Johnston admits it has been a hard road.

He and Stewart worked three jobs, while he lived in a shed for two years, to fund the business and try to make it work. That’s not to mention the 3am starts they had hawking their product on Chatsworth Road Market in the cold and wet when they were looking to get initial orders.

In the end, the hard slog has been worth it and now Johnston and Stewart believe the growth of PACK’D proves “frozen is the future”.

And the pair don’t intend on stopping at frozen smoothies either.

They tell us they have “plenty of innovation” in the pipeline and are determined to make a positive and lasting impact on the world by empowering individuals with elite nutrition at their fingertips.